A time capsule of the greatest financial mania in the history of mankind, told in real-time by regular folks and patriots. May future generations better understand the madness of crowds, and how power and money corrupt.

June 01, 2007

Re-reading the Bill of Rights, you wonder if George Bush either hates the document, or has never read it himself. The fact that his administration can get away with completely destroying the foundation upon which this country was built, and the American people could give a damn, shows you the state we're in as a country.

If you want grounds for impeachment, just read the Bill of Rights, then ask yourself if the Bush administration is protecting and defending the freedoms guaranteed in this document, or whether he is blatantly violating them.

Where is our Congress? Where is the Supreme Court? Where is the media? Where is the outraged population?

The same ignorance, malaise and corruption which led to the housing bubble (and crash) is the same ignorance, malaise and corruption which led to America losing its way under Bush/Cheney. Ron Paul has read our foundingdocuments. I hope you do too. Ignorance is not bliss.

Bill of Rights

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

Amendment III

No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Amendment V

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Amendment VI

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

Amendment VII

In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Re: the comment 'they took away', etc. That is a variation of the famous poem 'First they came' (for the Jews, the Communists, etc., by the time they came for me, there was noone to speak up for me). It was written after the Second World War by Pastor Friedrich Gustav Emil Martin Niemöller. See the Wikipedia entry for this fascinating form of protest.

Lack of respect for legal process is now pervasive in our Country. Everyday I fight for peoples' rights and find that there are fewer and fewer judicial officers who are moved by such arguments.

When I hear Bush claim that we need to export our "Democracy" to others, I cringe because I know we don't even have that here. And if we export what we do have, Corporate governance, God help the rest of the world.

I'd much have a Democrat in power who didn't tap Arab phones, didn't imprison al qaeda captured in Afghanistan and took the John Kerry position on terrorism, in that it's not different than fighting prostitution.

I fear for this country if Billary gets in power.

Don't you idiots see how stupid your reasoning is? If Bush really did even 5% of what you imbeciles accuse him of you'd all be in jail....which of course would make the world a better place.

It's just one of those obscure little unreported-upon conspiracy theory-ready hunks of floating White House detritus, a couple of odd, sticky, foul-smelling documents no one really wants to touch and no one knows quite what to make of, probably means nothing, probably being misread anyway, all a bit overblown and strange and not all that important and not all that different than the way things are now.

Unless, you know, it's not. Unless the violent twinge of queasy paranoia crossed with that uncontrolled bout of colon-clenching sighing you experience is deadly accurate and your radar for all things sinister and Rovean is right on target as you read about the delightfully titled National Security Presidential Directive/NSPD 51 and the Homeland Security Presidential Directive/HSPD-20, wherein it is calmly and furtively revealed that, in essence, George W. Bush owns your sorry ass.

Or, to put it another way, it looks like the Bumbling One just gave himself ever more power. Power to control and dictate the entire government, power to really spread the gospel of happy GOP incompetence, power to command the entire wobbly American universe should some sort of epic -- or not so epic, as the case may be -- calamity strike the homeland.

It goes something like this: Should any "decapitating event" occur in America that somehow incapacitates the D.C. power structure, should "any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions" take place, well then, all power and decision making would devolve to the White House, which would then attempt to orchestrate our very survival and oversee all essential governmental functions with none other than the president himself as, well, Super-Mega Lord Decider. With extra crayons.

You know, a dictator.

Wait wait wait, I hear you moan through your first pour of wine for the day, a futile attempt to stave off the sucker punch of doom you received from that last paragraph. There is nothing really new here. Hell, we've had a silly, ominous, "Terminator"-tinged master plan for post-apocalyptic America in place since Reagan was knee-high to a simpleminded jellybean, plans for a scowling "shadow government" to run the joint should, say, Russian nukes blow up all our Safeways or China secretly buy up all our Skippy peanut butter.

And more recently, this plan was transferred into the hairy, pockmarked arms of our own Homeland Security Department, which seems entirely appropriate, given how you like to imagine such a plan living alone in a dark and musty Pentagon subbasement stocked to the rafters with rusty Winchesters and shiny bayonets and giant shoe box-sized satellite phones from 1987 and a small mountain of vacuum-sealed emergency meat rations that will last through 2197, or at least the next season of "24." Cool.

But now, Shrub has seen fit to dust the thing off and make a few, uh, "revisions," most notably the one that appears to shift the decision-making process away from Homeland Security (which was then to disperse responsibility to various agencies and emergency services), straight to the Oval Office itself because, hey, who better to decide who gets to do what to whom when the s-- hits the fan than the most secretive, warmongering, never-saw-an-illegal-power-grab-it-didn't-like administration in American history? Gives you that warm, fuzzy, well-protected feeling all over, doesn't it? Like a rash? In your spleen?

Even more heartwarming, "catastrophe," in the vague, nearly useless language of these documents, could mean, why, just about anything at all. Hurricane? Flood? Low polling numbers for Giuliani? A bad tattoo of Alberto Gonzales' smirky face on Jenna Bush's sacrum? You bet! Because who gets to decide what constitutes a "catastrophe"? Why, Shrub himself, that's who. What's more, the event doesn't even have to occur in America (see "regardless of location"). Such a perceived "disruption" can happen anywhere in the world and with a press of the shiny red button next to his bed, Bush kicks the Enduring Constitutional Government (ECG) into gear. Neat!

I know what you're thinking. And I completely agree: Such secret plans are one of the most adorable, comic-booky aspects of dumb, ultrasecretive administrations. After all, do many 'Merkins not love to swoon and polish their NRA memberships as they imagine all those White House suits suddenly turning into patriotic superheroes at the first sign of a meteor strike or an attack by an alien super race or maybe just if Iraq gets a bit too uppity and starts bootlegging illegal DVDs of "The Office"? You bet they do.

And then boom, the nation goes into lockdown and it's a strict military state and Lynn Cheney starts enjoying sweaty night visions of Dick lumbering purposefully through the White House halls deciding who to nuke next as Dubya quivers in the corner and the flying monkeys prepare the escape pod. Just like in that Will Smith movie! Neat!

Let us now be serious for a moment. Let us hold back the sarcasm and step back and breathe a sigh of relief because I'm sure Dubya's changes to NSPD 51 mean a whole lotta nothing. I'm sure it's just another standard -- albeit a bit weird -- governmental procedural, boring and forgettable and just one of thousands of such indecipherable, hazily unconstitutional legal quirkballs in the Pentagon's creaky file cabinets, and Dubya's recent changes are just an honest tweak to what really amounts to a rather ridiculous, fantastical document in the first place. Yes, surely it's just a bunch of silly leftist paranoia to think that something dark and nasty could result from such a move.

After all, Shrub only has a year and a half left in office. Plus, his power has been severely truncated by the Dems. Why would he care to try for such a thuggish, cagey power grab now? What would be the point? Except, you know, to savagely tilt the next election and to further the new 'n' brutal neocon agenda of perpetual war and as a desperate, last-gasp move to prove he actually has the cojones to do something so appalling, so perfectly megalomaniacal, it's sure to rescue his rotten legacy from history's compost pile? I mean, besides that.

Better to spend gagillions on social programs than gagillons on your defense departmemnt contracting cronies in Iraq. At least the social programs benefit Americans. However, I am not not endorsing either party..they both suck. Check out the movie Iraq for Sale:http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6621486727392146155&q=iraq+for+sale&hl=en

Check out Ron Paul on Intrade (most active market for real money political futures/bets). He's now #5 (top 3 and Thompson) to win the Republican primary . He's moved up from 100/1 to 33/1 in a week and was the most actively traded candidate.

Good exposure. Have to admit I'm long a good number of contracts.

Good post. Everyone, especially the supreme court, forgets about the 10th amendment.

1 million dollar bail is the norm these days and lil ol' sparky is busier than never in Texas, even frying innocent people.

Eating meat is medieval, too. Talking about that, there was a study made by a reputable university which revealed that vegans have higher IQs than carnivores. True story. Now read the book "Omnivore's Dilemma" before you all come bitching at me. At least read the book's reviews on amazon.com.

This talk about fraud and corruption only covers a small part of it. Why is the mainstream press ignoring the Leo Wanta massive scandal where the Secretary of the Treasury and other top level government officials are refusing to pay $5.7 TRILLION that they had agreed to pay that was due to numerous third parties including various governments around the world. This is a clear violation of numerous laws and the International Court ruled that the money is due. They even literally stole money from the Bank of England.

The way things are going you would think that a global catastrophy is immimemt such as a comet hitting the world or a pole shift and severe earth changes that kill billions of people. A look at the Zetatalk site or at Rumor Mill News will provide a mindboggleing analysis of what could be in our immediate future within the next 5 years. These crooks are trying to get all of the money the public be dammed. The extraterrestials have already disabled more than one underground missile and have done other amazing things to frustrate some of these illegal government activities. You may think I am a nut for suggesting that these events are happening. So be it. Denial continues to be the easiest way to raise doubts and to deflect public opinion. Plant some obviously false stories so that the true stories will not be believed. Divide and Conquer.

"After all, Shrub only has a year and a half left in office. Plus, his power has been severely truncated by the Dems."

Your shrub is the weakest member of a much higher group. He was made president by this group. A group so organized and powerful that its members control many aspects of our future, holding positions of power throughout the world (i.e., Tony Blair, Paul Wolfowitz, Blackwater, etc). Some call it Illuminati, Skull & Bones, neocons, or what have you. They are all in it and they are not going away so fast. And as we can see by the cost of the war in Iraq, they are well funded, transferring taxpayer money into their pockets. These dark forces have been creating crisis and chaos for centuries in order to raise funds for self-enrichment and their sordid plans, like the New World Order, for instance. If you think that this is just a conspiracy story, you are another sheeple being manipulated by this group.

No right of burning the flag in the bill of rights? Typical Republican who probably is a Karl Rove foot soldier who surfs blogs to spread their pathetic agenda for a buck. Sorry buddy, HPs are smarter than that..move on. If you are not one of those, sorry sheeple, my bad.

Has anyone done any research on National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive 51 signed by Bush no May 9th?

This from a World Net Daily report:http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=55824

"The directive issued May 9 makes no attempt to reconcile the powers created there for the National Continuity Coordinator with the National Emergency Act. As specified by U.S. Code Title 50, Chapter 34, Subchapter II, Section 1621, the National Emergency Act allows that the president may declare a national emergency but requires that such proclamation "shall immediately be transmitted to the Congress and published in the Federal Register."

A Congressional Research Service study notes that under the National Emergency Act, the president "may seize property, organize and control the means of production, seize commodities, assign military forces abroad, institute martial law, seize and control all transportation and communication, regulate the operation of private enterprise, restrict travel, and, in a variety of ways, control the lives of United States citizens."

The CRS study notes that the National Emergency Act sets up congress as a balance empowered to "modify, rescind, or render dormant such delegated emergency authority," if Congress believes the president has acted inappropriately.

NSPD-51/ HSPD-20 appears to supersede the National Emergency Act by creating the new position of National Continuity Coordinator without any specific act of Congress authorizing the position."

I am a Constitutionalist and a conservative. This kind of end run around Congress scares the hell out of me. We already have in place laws to insure continuity of government. One of FEMAs major areas of responsibility is continuity of government in case of catastrophic disaster. This executive directive uses Orwellian doublespeak to assure us that the suspension of Constitutional separation of powers will be used to preserve the Consitution. This kind of crap is why the second ammendment was ratified.

As Jefferson said,"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tryanny in government."

The bill of rights isn't all of it. Don't forget most people haven't read the Constitution. It's not entirely our fault. Think of our crappy school system that is now more concerned with getting kids to pass a bubble test then to actually think. But then again, it is better for the government that way.

If you knew how things were supposed to be you would be really mad.

As an aside, I want to thank you Keith for some inspiration. A couple weeks back you had a post about the, 'Worst Generation'. (So a bit of a troll here sorry), But it stuck with me for awhile so now there is The Worst Generation Ever.

The Founders believed that human right came from God or from man's nature, not from government. The constitution was supposed to be a statement of powers given by the people and the states to the federal government. At that time, many argued that putting in a statement of things that the federal government could not do was a very bad idea, and it has turned out to be exactly that. The so called Bill of Rights was meant to be simply an emphasis of major rights that the new federal government was not given the power to intere with. Instead, after some years went by, it became to be a list of rights granted by the glorious federal government to the people. The idea of rights has thus been turned inside-out and upside-down. The Bill of Rights was not needed because the federal government was never granted the power to destroy these rights...but now it is viewed as a granting of rights. It is impossible to list all the rights of the people, because they were supposed to have retained all their rights except what the federal government was granted to do...but today it has become exactly the opposite and if we can't find a right somehow hidden in the Bill or Rights, well, we just don't have it! We either need to go back to the "original intent" which is not just contained in the few lousy words of the constitution but also in all that was written and spoken about it by the founders in many thousands of articles...or better yet, ditch the constituion and go back to the much better Articles of Confederation. The constitutional convention was just suppose to do some patching to those to fix some problems...instead we got the constitution with its dangerous federal court system. Of course, no scrap of paper can preserve rights. This requires an intelligent and education population. Our citizens have been completely dumbed-down by government controlled education. We need to forbid government from having anything to do with education. Government at all levels forbidden from having anything at all to do with education at all levels.

The truly sad fact is most Americans think those rights are granted to them by the Federal government. Like a candy treat handed out to little children. Liberals, the good Humanists and Marxists they are, refuse to teach the concept in our schools because of that word "Creator". Conservatives don't give it much thought either, so they share the blame.

Both conveniently ignore that part of The Declaration that speaks to unalienable rights. How many Americans can even define that word?

Yeah, and millions upon millions of you f*cking yuppies so thoroughly hate the right to keep and bear arms that we STILL have total gun bans in several cities in America. Why don't you urbanites just secede from the union? You 'tards can't be bothered to acknowledge and obey Constitutional law in the first place.

Once the Dems get back the White House, they'll go back to the same gun-grabbing tricks. Neither party respects the US Constitution, and it all comes down to corporations, real wealthy, and of course their hordes of dupes known as YUPPIES. All those people and organization are the ones perfectly willing to toss all of America into slavery ... just so the minority can live in $1M condos, watch "Flip this House" (i.e. more fraud) on A&E, and get paid to push slavery paperwork around in air-conditioned corporate offices.

Habeas Corpus? That is one guy, Jose Padilla. Did you know Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus? But he was great though, right?

Woodrow Wilson locked a war opponent in JAIL for 10 years...even after WWI was over, this slob was in jail. He opposed the war..that's it. But Woodrow Wilson is great, Bush is a terrorist. Is Cindy Sheehan in jail? Michael Moore? Rosie O'Dumbass?

Gitmo? Really? Does Bush put random detractors, Michael Moore types in there? No? Taliban and related ilk. Where does it say in the constitution that the Taliban have rights in there? What about German POWs during WWII, were they illegal too? Were they given a proper civilian trial? Then FDR is a terrorist, right??

He intercepts phone calls? Of everyone? Really? How about only if they are originated outside the country by known terrorist calling into the country. If that had been inplace pre 9/11, they would have caught them making their plans. Again, are foreign terrorists protected in the Bill of Rights?

I know, I know, 9/11 was an inside job, but of course.

First they came for the terrorists...and I said nothing, because I was not a terrorist! Next thing they'll be locking up everyone!

This article is really really entertaining. If you read through the rest of the Ammendments in the Bill of Rights (Not just the part that the original poster decided to bold), you discover that these have not been violated by this administration.

Trial by jury: Only stated to be preserved in cases of common law, and I don't see the administration getting too involved in that.

That is just one example. I don't really have to mucch interest to point everything out to you people. Go on believing what you want. I guess that is one thing this "Evil Dictator" of a president can't violate huh?

I would also like to point out a couple things about the Bill of Rights. I agree that it is incredibly disheartening that so few of Americans know their history. But what alot of people don't know, or at least don't care to think about, is that the writers of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights intended these documets to be living documents. They intended them to change and adapt with the times. That is one thing that so many Americans start screaming about.

I had a good laugh while reading your article and I relly do thank you for that!